Why do they want to stop the amnesty for Puigdemont?

BarcelonaFrom the beginning it was seen that the Supreme Court would place all possible obstacles to the application of the amnesty law to Carles Puigdemont and the rest of the main pro-independence leaders during 1-O, but especially to the former president. Això has contributed to a long and cumbersome judicial battle that this year, the prosecutors have visited a new capitol in the Supreme Court of Appeal, with both the Prosecutor's Office and the State Advocacy, together with Puigdemont's Advocate, Gonzalo Boye, defending that the amnesty was applied without delays when considering that it was not hi ha, such as defense judge Pablo Llarena, crime of embezzlement for mig. Boye has also defended that the case take place in the TSJC and that the Catalan judges be the ones to decide.

Let us remember that the Supreme Court, with Manuel Marchena at the helm, has put in place two avenues to delay as long as possible the application of the amnesty for Puigdemont. The first, more generic, is to consider the law as unconstitutional, an aspect that the TC will have to resolve. The second, more specious, is to consider that Puigdemont committed a crime of embezzlement, that is, illicit enrichment, and that this criminal figure is not amnestiable. This Monday both the defense and the Prosecution have tried to dismantle this thesis. "It cannot be seriously stated that they embezzled for personal benefit," argued the deputy prosecutor of the Supreme Court, María Ángeles Sánchez Conde.

The fact is that all this is nothing more than a manoeuvre by the Supreme Court to gain time and see if it can somehow torpedo the application of the amnesty and wait, for example, for a change in the Spanish government that will make things easier for it. Marchena and the rest of the conservative judges know that keeping Puigdemont in exile prevents political normalisation in Catalonia and is a factor of destabilization for the Sánchez government. And it is true that until Puigdemont and the rest of the exiles can return freely to Catalonia, politics cannot be done under normal conditions, and the current situation of impasse and a certain stagnation will be prolonged. Catalonia needs to turn the page on repression and exile, but there are very powerful sectors in the State that will prevent this until the last moment.

Given this panorama, there is no other possible strategy than to follow the legal procedures and act with patience and perseverance. The Constitutional Court, with a progressive majority, must clear the way and overcome all the legal obstacles that the Llarenas or Marchenas of the moment put in place. Meanwhile, the degree of hostility between a Prosecutor's Office that certainly has a hierarchical structure but that is still part of the judicial system and judges who, since the beginning of the Process, have believed themselves to be a kind of saviors of the country and have acted accordingly, with absolute disregard for what the legislative or executive power dictated, is remarkable.